Price cut fails to push Xbox 360 past PS3 in UK

And Wii still well ahead of both

Exclusive Microsoft this week claimed to have more doubled the Xbox 360’s European sales thanks to its recent price cut, but that still hasn’t been sufficient to put it ahead of the PlayStation 3 or the Wii in the UK.

The software giant made the bold sales claim yesterday, a month after the price cut came into effect. On 14 March, up to £50 was knocked off the price of each version of the console, taking the cheapest, most basic model down to £160.

However, a Sony spokesman today hit back at the company's arch rival, telling Register Hardware that the PS3 has outsold the Microsoft console every week for the last 15 weeks.

"Even this [price cut] hasn't been enough to put them ahead of UK PS3 sales," he said.

But Chart Track’s confirmed to us that Xbox 360 UK sales did double in weeks 12, 13, 14 and 15, when compared to weeks 8, 9, 10 and 11.

UK console sales monitor Chart Track confirmed that for the past 15 weeks the PS3 has largely kept ahead of the Xbox 360. However, a spokesman admitted that the two machines' units have been "extremely close" in some weeks.

The real winner is Nintendo. Chart Track said that sales of the Wii have been “more than double” those of the PS3 over the last 15 weeks.

And the Wii would still be “healthily” ahead of PS3 and Xbox 360 if those two machines' UK sales were combined, the spokesman said.